Darth Vader is enrolled in a Legacy Competitive REL event. During his turn, Nute Gunray casts a Worldslayer, but Anakin denies him that by casting a Force of Will for its alternative cost: He exiles Leviathan. In his own turn, Anakin casts Griselbrand and announces that he wants to activate its ability. When Nute and Anakin reach for their pens to adjust life totals, they realize that they both forgot to subtract 1 life for the Force of Will. Anakin now is at 8 life points, but they both agree he should have been at 7. They call a Judge.

You quickly investigate for bad intentions (always a good idea when dealing with Darth Vader), but this time around, it seems to be an honest mistake. How do you handle this situation?

Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario here!

[expand title=”View Answer”]

This is our final verdict on Vader:

It is the shared responsibility of Anakin and Nute Gunray to keep track of their life totals; when Force of Will was cast for its alternative cost, they should have written down immediately that Anakin went from 8 to 7 life points. However, Anakin did not verbally announce that he paid 1 life when casting Force of Will, which is comparable to casting Wrath of God for 3W (see IPG 2.5). So he committed a Game Rule Violation, for which he will receive a Warning and Nute will receive the accompanying Warning for Failure to Maintain Game State.
Now it is time to get the Head Judge involved! The decision to back up or not can only be made by him or her, and no partial fixes are allowed; it is not possible to simply adjust life totals and continue from there.

When not backing up, we leave everything as it is; so Anakin is at 8 life, activated Griselbrand and goes to 1, and then likely will continue with drawing 7 cards.
Or the Head Judge could give permission to back up; all actions are rewinded until the illegal casting of Force of Will. So Anakin does not pay 7 life for Griselbrand‘s activation, untaps the lands he used to cast Griselbrand, puts him back in hand, returns a random card from his hand onto the top of his library, taps all lands that were tapped at the end of Nute’s turn, returns the exiled Leviathan and Force of Will to his hand, and Nute puts Worldslayer from his graveyard onto the stack. Now Anakin has priority and may choose to cast Force of Will, this time by paying its full price: Both exiling a card and paying 1 life.

So, the big question remains: To back up or not to back up? The Head Judge can choose to back up, even through a card draw; we have a perfect solution for that in the IPG. Or you could choose not to back up, if you feel it would be too disruptive, or too many decision points have passed to do so safely. As Head Judge, these are the decisions you’ll have to make, often based on or influenced by your feeling derived from the situation at the table. (Guess you just had to be there!)

Several people tried to apply a partial fix, by “just correcting the life totals”. Although we know players often do this on their own (and there is no need for a Judge to get involved), this is not an official fix per the IPG. It was also suggested that Anakin is actually at 7 life, but that both players forgot to write it down, so all we have to do is to adjust the numbers on the life pads to what both players agree that they should be. This is really just another way of implementing a partial fix (and by now it should be clear that we don’t do partial fixes, except for the specific cases listed in the IPG).It is true that Anakin did not comply with MTR 2.14: “verbal announcement … of that life total”. When a rule in the MTR is broken, we check the IPG for Tournament Errors, to see if it’s one of the specific infractions listed; if not, we simply educate the player(s) and ask them not to repeat the mistake.

So, to make a long story short: You can choose to back up or not, but please, never ever apply a (partial) fix that is not supported by the IPG.

[/expand]